by T. E. Woods
“Papers say the team’s in a fog after Vogel’s murder,” Mort said. “Grief’s a tough thing.”
Gardener’s jaw clenched. “The men on my team are pros. You don’t get to this level if you can’t compartmentalize. We have a series in danger.” Mort got a close-up of the game face famous for shutting down opponents. “And I won’t let us lose.”
“Your compartmentalizing strong enough to close off your involvement in a murder?” Mort watched the soft spot on the front on Gardener’s throat start to throb.
Gardener’s voice was low and steady. “Come again?”
“Vogel ran every aspect of the Wings. Sure, his wife had the title of CEO and Wilkerson’s the coach. But it’s common knowledge Vogel was boss. That must make his murder all the more painful for those who worked so closely with him.”
“That what you mean by ‘involvement’? Words are money. A person shouldn’t spend them casually.” Gardener sat and his legs splayed out in front of him as easily as if he were in a poolside chaise, but his throat’s soft spot continued its salsa. Mort decided to push.
“I was there the game Vogel made the call to put you in for LionEl. Start of a whole new role for you, right?”
“My role’s what it’s always been. Help my team win.”
“Still, you gotta admit you’re the new star of the Wings. If I was LionEl, I’d be looking over my shoulder.”
Gardener’s face revealed nothing. “I don’t speculate on what my teammates may or may not be doing over their shoulders. Now, you asked me here for a reason.”
Mort crossed to his window. He kept his back to his guest for what he hoped was long enough to incubate some tension. When he finally turned, he saw Gardener in the exact pose he’d left him in.
“What’s your business at the No Fly Zone?”
Gardener’s face wrinkled. “Where’s that, now?” His voice climbed half a pitch.
“Dive bar down on the strip. Watered-down drinks, washed-out losers, and a pharmacy of bad-for-you’s available in the parking lot. Doesn’t seem like the place for Sports Illustrated’s cover boy.”
Gardener inhaled deeply and pulled himself taller. “Am I under some sort of watch, Detective? Last I checked, there’s no restrictions on where folks like me can go.”
Mort shook his head. “You wanna make this about that, Barry?”
The two men held stares until Gardener pulled his head back and laughed. “No, I guess I don’t. Call it core paranoia. Comes with being black in a town as pale as Seattle.”
“What’s your business at the No Fly Zone?”
Gardener shrugged. “Probably stopped in for a drink’s all.”
“When you’ve got L.A. in a few hours? I’m not buying it.” Mort stepped to his desk, flipped open a file, and tapped the top page. “Especially since you were there with Lyndon Baines Johnson. He’s LionEl’s agent.”
“I know who he is.” Gardener’s irritation was obvious. “And where I go and who I go with is nothing to you.”
“Tell me about your relationship with Reinhart Vogel.”
The hottest story in the NBA narrowed his eyes and leaned back. “You fishing? That what this is about? What yesterday at the arena was about?” He snorted in disgust. “You’re looking for my boss’s killer and you start with LionEl and Coach? You get nowhere with them, so you’re working your way down the roster? I can introduce you to Lucky if you want.”
“Lucky?”
Gardener nodded. “The guy who drives the floor Zamboni. Maybe after you’re done trying to pin Vogel’s murder on the team, you can move on to the custodial staff.”
Mort’s inner temperature spiked. He struggled to keep his voice level. “We’ve got Vogel’s killer in jail. I’m interested in your activities at the No Fly.”
Gardener laughed. “You think because I make my living putting balls through hoops, I rode the short bus to school?” He shook his head. “You’re a homicide dick. You don’t stake out bars unless there’s a body in the alley.”
“For all I know, you and Vogel hit the No Fly one night. Maybe that’s where he met Trixie.”
“Don’t play me. We both know your serial killer didn’t do Reinhart.”
“And you’re basing this on …?”
“I’ve been around Vogel nearly a year,” Gardener said. “No way he shops in the streets. Not that he’s above paying for play. Mr. Vogel likes pretty, shiny things. The kind who look good and keep their mouths shut. No way he brings a road whore into his penthouse.”
Mort watched him and said nothing.
“What you got is someone taking advantage of the headlines. Anyone with half a brain knows it.” Gardener stood and looked down at Mort. “You don’t strike me as the kind of cop who’s looking to pin this on anybody other than the real deal.”
“And that’s not you?” Mort shot back. “You didn’t make any introductions to guys who can make bad things happen? Maybe looked the other way when cash traded hands? You expect me to believe you and LBJ were down at the No Fly for the jukebox?”
Gardener’s eyes hardened. “Finding Vogel’s killer is your job.” He nodded to the door. “And unless you tell me I need a lawyer, I’m going to go do mine.”
Mort waited a moment before turning away. Gardener offered his goodbye without looking back.
Chapter Forty-Six
Ingrid Stinson-Vogel sat in her wingback chair and focused on the tomb-like silence of her home. If she held her breath, she could hear the steady ticking of the clock her great-grandmother had brought from Sweden as a young bride. It sat on a sideboard in the dining room, more than a hundred feet away, yet she heard it clearly. There was nothing to compete with it. No humming from the kitchen as Hildy prepared special treats for the man of the house. No booming laughter from Reinhart’s off-color jokes to the gardener. No heavy footfalls signaling her husband’s approach. A pang of guilt stabbed as she recalled countless times she’d longed for a break from the constant flurry of sounds and motions that forever accompanied the whirling force she’d married. She closed her eyes and remembered her grandmother’s stories of heaven.
Where are you, Reinhart? Are you safe? Are you as sick about the end of our story as I am?
She thought about that last time on the plane. They were flying home from the Wings’ implausible two-game sweep against the Lakers. Reinhart was tender in a way he hadn’t been in years. A flush swept over her as she recalled their passionate arrival home.
Did you know, Reinhart? Did you know that would be our last time?
Ingrid wasn’t a woman for daydreams, yet the thought of returning to that last flight was appealing. To stay suspended above the cares and crises waiting on the ground. To float high in the clouds wrapped in her husband’s arms forever.
Ingrid shifted her attention to her son. Pierce stood across the room, his back to her, apparently surveying the activity on the sound. But the slouch in his shoulders and the weariness in his spine told her he was as busy burying memories as she was.
“Come sit with me, Pierce.” She asked him again several moments later. Finally he turned and trudged across the thick rug, assumed his place beside her, leaned back, and closed his eyes.
“Pierce dear, we’ve got to call an end to this.”
He opened his eyes. She wondered if they were bloodshot from crying or from lack of sleep.
“An end to what, Mother?” His voice was flat.
She detested this side of him. Weak and indecisive. He didn’t show it often, but each time he did she flashed back to the last conversation she’d had with his father. A man who’d been too scared to stand beside her as she told her parents she was pregnant. Who’d asked her to do it alone and report back. To let him know he’d be safe. She’d learned at seventeen how much stronger women are than men. Most men, anyway. She’d made a vow that if she had a boy she’d raise him as a Stinson. Strong and certain. Like her father and grandfather.
Like Reinhart.
She cursed the genetic nat
ure she’d been unable to nurture out of her son.
“We both miss Reinhart desperately. But what’s done is done. The time has come to put aside our mourning and attend to the present. To the future.”
He sat silently. She shifted her voice to pleasant anticipation.
“Tell me about Chicago. Have the plans been much delayed with … since …” She fumbled for words to characterize her husband’s death and its aftermath.
Pierce’s eyes narrowed. “Reinhart’s murder? Is that what you mean, Mother? The only father I’ve ever known is dead. We can pretend it was cancer or a heart attack in his sleep that took him, but we both know that isn’t the case.”
Ingrid set her face to stone and wielded her stare until he squirmed and looked away. She wished she’d given birth to a daughter. She never understood the cloying sentiment young women had with their first pregnancies, hoping they carried a boy to continue the family line. Did her gender make her any less a Stinson? It was wrong to wish for boys. Firstborns should always be women. Secure the strong child first. Weak men were tedious, unproductive, and dangerous. She assumed weak women were the same, but knew they were as rare as strong men. Reinhart was strong. But Ingrid had long ago resigned herself to the reality of a fragile son. He’d need her guidance and protection always. And as women had done for millennia, she’d take care of him.
An image gripped her. Reinhart on the floor. Alone. Without a wife’s comfort or protection. “Save that tone for your warehouse workers. Keep it out of my home.” She heard the anger in her voice and consciously shifted to a gentler attitude. “Tell me what you need to move past this. Time away? Medication?” She hesitated. “I suppose we could find a discreet therapist if you thought it would help.”
Pierce turned his ashen face toward her. “Reinhart is dead. I don’t know why I need to keep reminding you of that. He’s gone and he shouldn’t be. And you ask me about my plan for expanding the business? Are you that coldhearted?”
Ingrid kicked him hard in the knee. He yelped, leaned forward to cradle it, and she kicked him harder. He leaped up and stumbled several steps before collapsing onto the sofa.
“Don’t ever speak to me of my heart, Pierce. Cold or otherwise. We’re Stinsons. We do not have the luxury of wallowing in our emotions when a misfortune has befallen us.” Her voice was as smooth and strong as the black silk dress she wore. “Stinson Industries has over two thousand employees worldwide. Rainy Day has nearly three hundred. Millions of dollars ride on the outcome of the Wings’ basketball series. These responsibilities are ours alone, Pierce. Shall we have our employees’ lives disrupted because we are so absorbed in grief we fail to attend to the enterprise that puts food on their tables and clothes on their children’s backs? Should I issue a memo telling them they’re all on their own in an effort to avoid my son’s accusations of a cold and callous heart?”
She took a shaky breath, smoothed her hair, and calmed herself. “Our family has grown these companies through rougher times than these. You were right to take Rainy Day into new markets—”
Pierce interrupted. “Reinhart didn’t want me to.”
She huffed out a short exhale. “And he was wrong. Trust your instincts. Your vision is larger than Reinhart’s. More like my father’s. Pull yourself out of this self-pity, and lead these companies into the future.”
“But the murder—”
It was Ingrid’s turn to interrupt. “The woman who murdered Reinhart Vogel is safe in a downtown jail. Say it as many times as you need to. Allow it some comfort. She’s on her way to a lifetime in prison. She can’t hurt us.”
“But …”
Ingrid made no effort to hide her anger. “But nothing, Pierce. She’s killed a dozen or more times. Reinhart was simply her last. She’s none of our concern. Our enterprises are. Put this behind you. This Trixie creature killed Reinhart. Tragic things happen. Even to us. Accept that, move on, and see to your responsibilities.”
She held her son’s gaze, remembering countless times past when he’d tried to demonstrate his will with an old-fashioned staring contest. Now they locked eyes until he looked away and fell into the sofa cushions, crying.
She shook her head, stood, and left him alone with his weakness in the lovely, quiet room.
Chapter Forty-Seven
“Trixie wants you.” Jimmy slid into Mort’s office like he was on a skateboard. “DA says get your sorry ass down there. Figures she’s ready to confess.”
“She’s playing,” Mort said. “Getting her laughs making us jump. Besides, we don’t need a confession. We got the physicals. It’s the DA’s job from here. I’m concentrating on Vogel’s murder.”
Jimmy leaned against the doorframe. Bruiser sat beside him. “A confession sure would make it easy. Besides, we can walk and chew gum, right?”
Mort looked at the whiteboard. Four photos from Reinhart Vogel’s crime scene flanked a list of people he’d interviewed. LionEl King. Lyndon Baines Johnson. Felicia Fatone. Allen Wilkerson. Barry Gardener. Ingrid Stinson-Vogel. Yet he was no closer to finding Vogel’s killer than when they first got the call. Maybe a little break would give him some perspective. He stood and grabbed his suit jacket.
“Let’s go see what’s on Trixie’s twisted little mind.”
They walked into the King County jail’s third-floor interrogation room to find Connie White, a.k.a Trixie, seated and secured with chains. The road burns on the side of her face were healing. Mort was disappointed there’d be no scar. He hoped a jury would be able to see past her considerable beauty to the ugliness pulsing inside.
“What’s he doing here?” Her voice cracked like she hadn’t used it in a while.
Mort grabbed a metal chair from the far side of the room and sat within two feet of Trixie’s floor lock. Her skin was already taking on the sallow tones of someone deprived of natural light. “Officer DeVilla stays.”
Her eyes shifted mood. First defiant, then softening to playful. Sexy. Finally, annoyed.
She turned to Jimmy. “Where’s that damned dog of yours? I thought you never went anywhere without your little friend.”
Jimmy pulled his own chair next to Mort’s.
Trixie did her best to look relaxed in her orange jumpsuit and chains. “I guarantee I’d lick your balls better than that shepherd does.”
“You’ve got ten seconds to get to your point, Trixie.” Mort struggled to dial back his anger. “I’ve got to get home. Relax. Have a few drinks. Maybe watch a little television before crawling into my warm bed.”
Jimmy joined in. “I was hoping we’d grab a steak, Mort. Weather’s supposed to be terrific tonight. We could go to the Square and grab a table on Delmonico’s patio. I’ll ask Micki to join us. Oh, wait. She’s got that appointment at the beauty parlor. You know how she is about getting her hair all fluffed and buffed.”
Mort grinned. “Nothing better than the sight of a pretty woman all dolled up on a spring night.”
“Stop it, boys.” Trixie gave them a weary smile. “You think I’m going to get weepy from tales of the good life outside? That the plan? Make me go all little girl with what I’m missing? Then what? Offer me a burger and a jar of moisturizer if I sign a paper saying I killed everybody on your list of cold cases?” She shook her head in disappointment. “Surely you got something better up your sleeve.” She riveted her eyes on Mort. “I know I do.”
Mort leaned forward, his voice cold and direct. “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m here because the DA stupidly thinks you’re ready to give yourself up. You’ve got a play to make? Do it and let me get gone.”
Trixie’s eyes twinkled. “Now there it is, Mort. The appreciative and worthy adversary I’d hoped you’d be.”
“All I did was haul you in,” Mort snapped. “Don’t make this about me.”
Trixie’s laugh was gravel in a rusty pipe. “At least some things in life never change. Introduce me to a man and I’ll meet yet another dick-for-brains who thinks the world revolves around him.” Her face c
ontorted into sneering rage. “You think this—” She rattled her chains until Mort thought she’d tear an arm off. “—has anything to do with you? You think my Seattle gambit has in any way been influenced by Mort Grant, fumbling chief of detectives? That I chose the men, or the hotels, or even the damned city to play this out with you in mind?” Her pasty complexion turned fire red and sweat beaded on her brow. “You fucking piece of camel dung. You think I planned this for you?”
She caught herself. Struggled to contain her anger by swallowing ragged inhales of air. Mort gave her time, glanced up at the cameras in each corner of the small room and hoped they were capturing every word. The DA would have her confession after all.
Minutes passed. Trixie took one last long inhale, opened her eyes, and smiled at the two men across from her and resumed her conversation in a steady tone. “Forgive me. I’m unaccustomed to being restrained. My anger is about the situation in which I find myself, not the pleasure of your company.” She instinctively tried to cross her legs but was prevented by her shackles. She grimaced, stomped her left foot, and took another moment to steady herself. “The reasons for my Seattle activities are my own, Mort. I’ll not be discussing them with you. I’ve asked you down here for another matter entirely.”
“Make it quick.”
Trixie glanced at Jimmy, obviously hoping he’d excuse himself. When Jimmy stayed put, she sighed and continued.
“I like you, Mort. Truly, I do. I needed a way to know what the police knew. That’s one of several reasons I became involved with CLIP. Those pathetic losers grab whatever piece of news they can get about the state of prostitution in your fair city and make it their life’s focus. Each meeting gave some kind of speculation about the latest gossip on Trixie. None of it was reliable, though. I was ready to take up residence on a stool in a local cop bar when you waltzed into our little gathering with your rumpled suit and aw-shucks attitude.” The come-on in her eyes made Mort’s stomach hurt. “I was hoping for some spice with you. Now, that would have added an all-new wrinkle to the festivities. But you had other ideas. You were gaga over Charlotte Conklin the moment you laid eyes on her. While I regret missing the romp, I have to admit I got a kick out of watching you swoon over sweet Charlotte. And who better to stay close to than the man in charge of investigating the whole kit and caboodle?” She shifted her attention to Jimmy. “Here’s hoping I get that lucky next time I’m in Vegas, huh?”